A Man Without Breath

‘As you wish. I’m certainly not going to stand between you and your liver. Look, I’m not anxious to head back to Russia, but it strikes me there’s a lot of work to do in Stalino, right now. That’s near Kharkov, isn’t it?’

‘That depends on what you mean by near. It’s three hundred kilometres south of Kharkov. That’s much too far to send you, Bernie. I need you here in Berlin. Especially now and this weekend.’

‘Would you mind telling me why?’

‘I’ve been warned by the ministry of propaganda that we can expect a summons to the Prince Carl Palace at any time. So that we might brief the minister himself on what you discovered in Katyn Wood.’

I let out a groan.

‘No, listen Bernie, I want you to make sure that there is nothing in your report he can find fault with. I don’t think the bureau can afford to disappoint him again so soon after the disappointment he felt after we lost our witness to the sinking of the SS Hrotsvitha von Gandersheim.’

‘I should have thought that overcoming disappointment is what propaganda is all about.’

‘Besides, it’s Heroes Memorial Day this Sunday. Hitler’s inspecting an exhibition of captured Soviet military material and making a speech, and I need someone with a uniform to accompany me to the Armoury Building and help represent this department. All of the general staff will be there, as usual.’

‘Find someone else, Judge. Please. I’m no Nazi. You know that.’

‘That’s what everyone in this department says. And there is no one else. It seems that this weekend there is only you and me.’

‘It will be just another rant by the great necromancer about Bolshevik poison. But now I begin to understand. That’s why there are so many judges from the bureau out of town, isn’t it? They’re avoiding this duty.’

‘That’s very true. None of them want to be anywhere near Berlin this weekend.’ He puffed his pipe for a moment and then added: ‘Perhaps they’re afraid of failing to show the proper amount of respect and enthusiasm for the leader’s ability to lead our nation in such a solemn moment of national commemoration.’ He shrugged. ‘On the other hand, they might just be afraid.’

I lit a cigarette – if you can’t beat them, join them – and took a long drag before speaking again.

‘Wait a minute. Is something going to happen, Judge? At the Armoury? To the general staff?’

‘I think something is going to happen, yes,’ said the judge. ‘But not to the general staff. At least not right away. Afterwards it’s quite possible there may be some kind of overreaction on the part of the Gestapo and the SS. Of the kind we were discussing earlier. So I wouldn’t forget your firearm if I were you. In fact, I’d be very grateful if you made sure you brought it with you. I’ve never been much of a shot with a pistol.’

Even as the judge was speaking I remembered a remark made by Colonel Ahrens during one of our more frank conversations – something about the amount of treason talked in Smolensk – and suddenly a lot of what I’d seen seemed to make sense: the package addressed to Colonel Stieff in Rastenburg that Von Dohnanyi had carried all the way from Berlin and which – strangely – Lieutenant von Schlabrendorff had asked Colonel Brandt to carry on Hitler’s plane back to Rastenburg must surely have been a bomb, albeit a bomb that hadn’t exploded.

And what better motive could there be for someone to have killed a couple of telephonists than the possibility that they had overheard the details of a plan to kill Hitler? But when that plan had failed, another plan must have been put into action. That made sense, too: Hitler was increasingly a recluse and the opportunities to kill him were few and far between. All the same, if this was indeed why the two telephonists had been murdered, I found the act repugnant. Hitler certainly deserved to die, and secrecy was undoubtedly important if his assassination was ever to be carried out, but not if that meant the cold-blooded murder of two innocent men. Or was I just being naive?

‘Sure,’ I said. ‘The mist clears. I begin to see the elf-king, father. He’s near.’

The judge frowned, trying to recognize my allusion. ‘Goethe?’

I nodded. ‘Tell me something, Judge,’ I said. ‘I suppose Von Dohnanyi’s involved.’

‘Christ, is it that obvious?’

‘Not to everyone,’ I said. ‘But I’m a detective, remember? It’s my job to smell when the fuse is burning. However, if I’ve guessed, it’s possible others might guess too.’ I shrugged. ‘Maybe that’s why the bomb didn’t go off on Hitler’s plane. Because someone else figured it out.’

‘Christ,’ muttered the judge. ‘How did you know about that?’

‘You know, for an intelligence officer with the Abwehr your friend isn’t very clever,’ I said. ‘Brave, but not smart. He and I were on the same plane down to Smolensk. If you’re going to carry a parcel that’s addressed to someone in Rastenburg it looks a lot less suspicious if you deliver it the first time you’re there.’

‘That parcel you saw was only ever the back-up plan to Plan A.’